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The garment factory in Bangladesh where 112 people were killed in a fire over the weekend was
used by major U.S. and European retailers, a reporter discovered yesterday from clothes and account
books left amid the blackened tables and melted sewing machines at Tazreen Fashions Ltd.

Wal-Mart had been aware of safety problems at the factory and said it had decided well before
the blaze to stop doing business with it. But it said a supplier had continued to use Tazreen
without authorization.

Sears, likewise, said its merchandise was being produced there without its approval through a
vendor, which has since been fired. The Walt Disney Co. said its records indicate that none of its
licensees has been permitted to make Disney-brand products at the factory for at least a year.
Combs’ Sean Jean Enterprises did not return calls.

Labor activists have long said that retailers in the West must ensure that overseas factories
making their products are safe. They seized on the blaze — the deadliest in Bangladesh’s nearly
35-year history of exporting clothing — to push retailers to insist on stronger fire standards.

Charles Kernaghan, director of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, said nothing
will change unless companies protect workers as vigorously as they do their brands.

“The labels are legally protected,” he said. “But there are no similar laws to protect rights of
the worker.”

Meanwhile, three Tazreen supervisors were arrested yesterday as protests over the suspected
arson fire raged on a third day, with workers and police clashing.

Dhaka District Police Chief Habibur Rahman said they would be investigated for suspected
negligence. He some survivors said managers had stopped workers from leaving after a fire alarm
went off.

The government has blamed the country’s worst industrial blaze on saboteurs, and police said
they had arrested two people, who were seen on CCTV footage trying to set fire to material in
another factory.

Witnesses said at least 20 people were injured yesterday in the capital’s industrial suburb of
Ashulia as police pushed back protesters demanding safer factories and punishment for those
responsible for the blaze.

Thousands of workers poured onto roads as authorities closed most of the 300 garment factories
in the area. Police used tear gas and batons against them.

Bangladesh’s fast-growing garment industry — second only to China’s in exports — has long
provided jobs and revenue for the desperately poor country, while turning out the low-priced
products shoppers in the United States have come to enjoy.

But the industry has a ghastly safety record. More than 300 workers have died in garment-factory
fires in Bangladesh since 2006.